GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Hurricanes and tropical storms in Asia and North America, torrential rains in Africa: heavy rains and flooding are causing heavy damage and deaths. Irene drifted from a hurricane to a tropical storm by the time it hit New York, and while damage was less than feared, the storm killed 16 people in six US states over the weekend. Staten Island firefighters rowed scores to safety when flooding reached five feet, nearly two metres.
Eastern Uganda has had torrential rains that have rotted crops and poisoned some of the maize aid supplies, with cholera and hepatitis outbreaks feared. A government official says that water purification tablets and mosquito nets are urgently needed to stem poor sanitation related diseases.
Southwestern Nigeria, around the city of Ibadan, has had heavy flooding, with at least 20 people dead after a dam broke.
Fifteen provinces in Thailand have been warned to expect heavy monsoon flooding, as the country hunkers down for continuing torrential rains, with high sea waves of two to three metres expected in the Andaman Sea.
Links to other sites: allAfrica, Bangkok Post, BNO news, NY Times
With luck, Irene is a name that will be used again
Hurricane Irene, 25 August - click on image to view larger (photo, Nasa/Goes)
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – This is the moment to hope that Irene doesn’t join retirees Katrina, Mitch and Tracy, storms that were so violent their names were taken off the Atlantic hurricanes list, according to Geneva-based WMO (World Meteorological Organization). Irene is currently battering the northern Bahamas as a category 3 hurricane and it is expected to move towards North Carolina by Saturday, after dumping 150-300mm of rain in the Bahamas, says to the US National Hurricane Center in Miami.
The storm centre is, for now, expected to miss Florida and Georgia.
Irene is the first storm of the season, which is expected to have 7 to 10 hurricanes. Three to five of those, says meteorologists in Geneva, are likely to be major hurricanes.
Irene’s name was selected from one of six lists used to name Atlantic tropical storms. The lists were created in 1953 and are managed by a WMO committee. Only women’s names appeared until 1979, when men’s names were added. The names are used on a rotating basis, unless a storm is so deadly that it must be retired, the case with Katrina, which caused enormous damage in New Orelans in the US in 2005 and killed nearly 2,000 people.
Igor and Thomas were retired in 2010 after they caused deaths and heavy damage. They will be replaced on the official lists by Ian and Tobias, available in 2016.
Nasa called Irene a major storm Thursday 25 August, saying its length is about one-third the length of the US coastline.
Homeless Haitians, post-earthquake, have set up tents on a golf course (photo: ©2010 Marco Dormino/UN)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in Geneva Tuesday 9 February made an urgent plea for another kind of aid for Haiti: weather services. The organization points out that “the rainy season with flood risk is due in early April and the hurricane season begins in early June. In order to prevent potential disasters related to natural hazards, which the country is prone to, the capacity of Haiti to produce and disseminate weather information and warnings needs to be developed without delay.”
More than 90 percent of the disasters in Haiti “are linked to frequently occurring meteorological, hydrological and climate-related hazards,” says the WMO.
The country’s meteorological services have operated only partially since the 12 January earthquake, so other WMO member countries have been providing weather information.
Lake Geneva
Complete coverage of the WCC-3 by GenevaLunch
Conference is 31 August – 4 September 2009
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Geneva is home this week to a key global conference on how the world can adapt to climate change – disasters such as floods and hurricanes, but also the more subtle changes that affect agriculture, tourism and daily life.
The conference agenda is wide-ranging and includes improvements to early warning systems for disasters and how to provide more precise and more localized weather forecasting, needed by developing countries as well as industries in the developed world.
The meeting is hosted by Switzerland and organized by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and a group of partners.
